February 21, 2012

While the backlash over the requiring of transvaginal ultrasounds for abortions in VA has the Governor backing down (now saying he’ll “review the bill in its final format when it comes to him”) and the VA House postponing the bill two days in a row, in Texas, we can already see the results of a similar law, and others.

Just read through this post. Between places like Texas which have already enacted similar legislation, to Idaho outlawing the mere purchase of RU-486 (which is probably unconstitutional), state laws across this country have restricted, outlawed, and put huge burdens on women and their private health care choices, up to and including medically unnecessary vaginal probing.

Unmarried, impoverished and pregnant with her fourth child, McCormack faced the problem so many American women do because nearly 90 percent of the nation’s counties have no clinics or hospitals that will perform abortions. That is an outcome of nearly four decades of attacks by anti-choice forces. For her, the closest clinic was in Salt Lake City, a 150-mile drive. Because Utah requires a waiting period, she would have had to make the five-hour round-trip twice. The expense of the trip, the procedure and follow-up medical care also worried her.

Then she found out from her sister about RU-486, the abortion-inducing drug. Her sister ordered it, and McCormack took the pill as soon as it arrived. It worked. But there were complications that brought the fact of her abortion to the notice of authorities. In Idaho, self-induced abortions are outlawed. Although the original case against McCormack were dismissed last summer, they could be reinstated.

This woman, because her private medical matters became public, is, as Meteor Blades put it, treated in her community like a modern Hester Prynne. This is akin to the sort of bullying Jessica Ahlquist received. Unbelievable.

No woman in the world should vote Republican. Unless, ladies, you want to go return to dangerous back-ally abortions and more unwanted pregnancies due to lack of access to birth control.

Wake up, America. Republicans want to screw you, and then dump you with the consequences.